As means for automatically manufacturing a wiring assembly such as a wiring harness or a subassembly of the wiring harness, a conveying device equipped with devices for working electric wires into a wiring assembly and a wire laying-out board conveyed by the conveying device are well known (see, for example, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 61-61489).
In such an automatic manufacturing apparatus, the electric wires are laid out on the wire laying-out board and the wire laying-out board is conveyed in a predetermined order of processes using the conveying device, thereby to successively work on the electric wires laid out.
Devices equipped with the conveying device for conveying the wire-laying out board include a measuring and cutting device for reeling out an electric wire from a wire web and cutting the electric wire to predetermined lengths, a wiring laying-out device for laying out a lot of electric wires obtained by the cutting on a wire laying-out board, a stripping device for stripping insulated end portions of the laid out electric wires, a terminal clamping device for clamping terminals to the end portions of the stripped electric wires, and a terminal inserting device for inserting the clamped terminals into connector housings.
On the other hand, the wire laying-out board comprises a plate-shaped main body portion conveyed by the conveying device, a lot of wire laying-out jigs disposed on the upper surface of the main body portion, and a lot of wire clamps juxtaposed in a direction of the conveyance of the main body portion. The wire laying-out jig is constituted by pins and the like standing in the main body portion, so that it is easy to attach and detach the electric wires. On the other hand, the wire clamp is constituted by a clamping member urged by an urging member, and is opened and closed by jigs or devices such as a wire clamp head of the terminal inserting device. Electric wires to be worked into a wiring assembly are measured and cut to predetermined lengths, and the electric wires obtained by the cutting are then laid out above the main body portion by the wire laying-out jigs. On the other hand, the ends of the electric wires are detachably held in the wire clamps, whereby the ends of the electric wires project outwardly beyond the main body portion.
In the above described construction, the wire laying-out board is intermittently conveyed by the conveying device, whereby the wire laying-out board is successively conveyed to the respective devices equipped with the conveying device. When the wire laying-out board is stopped, the electric wires are processed by the respective devices, that is, the measuring and cutting process, the wire laying-out process, the stripping process, the terminal clamping process and the terminal inserting process are successively carried out. Since the ends of the electric wires project outwardly with respect to the main body portion of the wire laying-out board in order to face the respective devices, stripping, terminal clamping, and terminal inserting processes can be easy to carry out.
The terminals caulked on the ends of the electric wires are connected to each other through the connector housings, and also are used in the post-inserting process for connecting to another wiring assembly, or another electric wiring system, or the like. In the terminal inserting process, therefore, all the terminals caulked on the ends of the electric wires are not always inserted into the connector housings. In many cases, only the particular terminals may be inserted into the connector housings and contained inwardly with respect to the wire laying-out board. Consequently, the rest of the terminals (hereinafter referred to as "post-inserting terminal") still project beyond the wire laying-out board until the final process of one wiring assembly manufacturing apparatus is finished, so that the end of the electric wire with respect to the post-inserting terminal remains on the wire clamp on the wire laying-out board.
As a result, when the electric wires constituting the wiring assembly after passing through the respective processes are detached from the wire laying-out board, a worker must force the wire clamps by hand to detach an electric wire portion of the post-inserting terminal from the wire clamp. Such a manual operation increases the number of processes and therefore requires considerable expenditure of time and physical effort by the worker. Moreover, when the wire clamp is forced to open by a jig, the electric wires may be damaged by an edge portion of the jig or the wire clamps.
Furthermore, it is considered that the electric wire with respect to the post-inserting terminal is detached from the wire clamp by utilizing the terminal inserting device to bring the electric wire into a free state prior to the detaching process of the completed wiring assembly. In this case, however, the post-inserting terminal may also be deformed, for example, when the wire laying-board after passing through the terminal inserting process is conveyed toward the downstream side.
Therefore, what is really needed are a method of treating a post-inserting terminal on a wire laying-out board and a temporary holding member and a wire laying-out board used therefore which are efficient and at low cost.